Starting with a hoarder’s house!
In October of 2012, we bought
a ‘hoarder’s’ home. I think we were both a little anxious, but also
excited about it. We purchased this home, near our current home,
that was used strictly as his storage place for many years. The hoarder, named Sydney Evans, actually lived across the street from us in a ranch home built on a slab. Before he died, he had told us about another home he owned That house is a two story
colonial, with a basement, and a breezeway that connects the house to a
two-car garage. There's also another two-car garage attached to the
first one! The house has many features that we are missing in our
current home: a basement, a family room, another full bath, extra
bedrooms for guests, plenty of storage and work space for Dan (king of
projects), space to store our camper.
The home we bought (as is) was CRAMMED with stuff. When I say ‘stuff’, I mean everything from many new,
in the box items, to literally 3 TONS of books (new), more clothes (all sized
for a large man) than anyone could wear in a lifetime, collectibles, furniture,
and about 150 cubic yards of trash! In about six weeks, with the help of three
full-time laborers, we cleaned out the 4 bedrooms, living room, family room,
dining room, 2-1/2 baths, basement, attic, and TWO garages. Phew! We are left with some nice
pieces of furniture (uncovered in the excavation exercise), and two two-car garages
full of useable items. While all this was going on, just for grins and giggles,
we remodeled the kitchen where we live, ripped out the ruined cabinets and
appliances at the ‘hoarder house’, installed new heating systems at both the
house where we live and the ‘hoarder' home, hereafter called the Sheridan house.
A word about our current home....we both love this house. I bought it
before Dan and I were a couple, and thought I'd live here alone until I
died! It's a good sized ranch on a slab, with a one-car attached
garage. The yard is large and I love working in the garden that was
established by its previous owner. We're in the process of redesigning
the kitchen, and that work will be completed in early December. That
was the last part of the house that had not been redone.
The new house, on Sheridan, is in pretty rough shape. To sum it up, I
will just say that we can barely get into and through the house. Every
room, every space, is FULL of stuff. It gives new meaning to
'shovel-ready' project! Sydney, our hoarder neighbor, died a few weeks
ago. His brother-in-law has been handed the task of making sense out
of his estate, and liquidating his assets. We're buying the house for
the amount left on the mortgage, which is less about one-third of its
potential value. We believe the house is basically sound, and the roof
was replaced within the last two years.
Here’s what the front of the
house looked like when we began….
Here's what it looked like after Gena worked hard for a day
This is the debris from the clean out of the front of the house. First of MANY piles!
Of course, this was only the
beginning of our odyssey! The following
are the pictures of what we found when we entered the house for the first
time. Unbelieveable!
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| stairs down to basement |
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| In the basement - washer |
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| Old boiler (hadn't worked for several years) |
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| Old hot water heater |
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| The kitchen, believe it or not! |
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| Family Room |
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| 1st floor bathroom - sorry it's sideways - Blogger refuses to allow me to rotate it! |
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| 1st floor bathroom |
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| Master bedroom |
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| Master bedroom |
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| Master bedroom |
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| stairs down to basement |
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| basement laundry!! |
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| more lovely basement |
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| more in the basement |
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| basement bathroom - included about 75 gallons of paint... |
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| some plumbing, electrical - yikes! |
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| The kitchen - after we hauled out enough to see the floor!! |
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| living room |
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| living room |
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| living room |
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| upstairs bath |
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| one upstairs bedroom |
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| second bedroom upstairs - from the hall |
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| Dining room |
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| more kitchen |
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| entering from the breezeway between the garage and house |
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| family room |
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| Kitchen | | |
So, now you know what we were faced with upon entering this house. I give Dan all the credit for his vision of what this house could be. It was a bit overwhelming, to say the least!
Oh, and the following will give you some idea of what the BACK of the house looked like.
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| This was the pile that awaited us just outside the family room door! | |
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We spent about six weeks, from end of October through mid-December,
doing the initial cleaning out of the house. We actually hired 3 guys, just laborers, who
worked pretty much full time during that six weeks. We filled 150 cubic
yards of dumpsters, countless contractor bags out for the garbage truck
each week. We donated literally about 3 TONS of books to charities who
would come to pick them up. Nearly 200 pairs of NEW shoes in the box,
plus many bags and boxes of clothes were also donated. We've sent
several car loads of collectible things to a shop that gives us 75% of
the sales price. We have stored countless items of mostly new
merchandise (everything you can think of - think COSTCO) in the two
2-car garages. We uncovered quite a few pieces of nice furniture that
we probably will use in the house.
Current plans include tearing off the two additions that were added
(badly) over the years, tearing down the originally badly constructed
(and now rotting) original garage, digging a new basement under a new
1000 square foot addition, re-pinning the foundation under the newer
2-car garage, new foundation and new replacement garage....shall I go
on? It's a big project! The original kitchen was only 8X12 - really
small. The new addition will include a new kitchen/family room, a
master bedroom with walk-in closet and en suite bath, plus a 'powder
room'. The old kitchen becomes a first floor laundry room/butler's
pantry.
At a home show in Novi, we found a company who offered a six-month, zero percent builder loan.
The offer was for a limited time - in order to get the loan, they have
to be able to build the shell for the addition and garage replacement in
May....meaning, we have to get home by end of March, get the garage
cleaned out, get the one addition (where we unfortunately stored all the
useable furniture) cleaned out,get a demolition crew and equipment on
the job, get the new basement/foundation poured and finished - all in
April!! Yikes.
After the holidays, we decided we needed a break, so at present, we are in Key West having some lovely relaxation time. We didn't find it hard at all to just walk away!
